If you like hot & humid weather this is certainly your pattern! Once again, most towns flirted with 90 (89 in Boston) yesterday afternoon and not much change today with another hot day expected. The only difference is the risk of some isolated afternoon thunderstorms across western & northern New England. In fact, some of these storms may be locally strong. No storm threat anticipated for metro Boston or the beaches of southern New England. Use that sunscreen!
The reason for the thunder threat across western New England is a slow moving cool front. This front becomes a major player on our meteorological world for Thursday & again on Friday. The reason it’s a playa is that it will help to deflect Tropical Storm Arthur away from New England during the day on Friday. The problem is that this cool front will siphon (I am developing a man crush on that word…siphon) some tropical moisture from Arthur and up into New England for the Holiday. On Thursday, the most likely areas to see these tropical downpours will be across far western New England. For our part of the world just a few isolated afternoon storms—the beaches are likely to stay dry.
As of now, Friday doesn’t look good. This front will be draped across southern New England and it will produce showers & downpours for much of the day. It won’t be a good beach day and it won’t offer much in the way of dry times. I do think western & northern New England are more likely to remain dry and some of this dry air will work its way into southern New England by late afternoon/evening. This may allow for fireworks displays to continue (despite a soaked ground). Now, it’s only Wednesday morning…still plenty of time to fine tune the timing of these showers & downpours.
I can say for sure that Saturday and Sunday offer plenty of sunshine, low humidity & warm temps. Great for outdoor activities (rip currents & high surf are likely though at the beaches).
More on the 4th holiday forecast from Chris later today!
~JR